Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson (1 day late)

[Gravel Democrat]

Planned to post on 4/13, Jefferson's Birthday, but time did not allow. Better late than never.

Why does this country not have a day to honor the Author of the Declaration of Independence?

One of the most important documents in the history of our nation, and the world. This is inexcusable. But understandable, as our current "representatives" seek empire.

In Honor of one of the Greatest Men (and Democrats) that Ever Lived on the Planet:

"Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826)<1> was the third President of the United States (1801–1809) and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776).



He idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a limited federal government. Jefferson supported the separation of church and state<9> and was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786). Jefferson's revolutionary view on individual religious freedom and protection from government authority have generated much interest with modern scholars.<10> He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the co-founder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for 25 years..."

"...Jefferson served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress beginning in June 1775, soon after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. When Congress began considering a resolution of independence in June 1776, Jefferson was appointed to a five-man committee to prepare a declaration to accompany the resolution. The committee selected Jefferson to write the first draft probably because of his reputation as a writer. The assignment was considered routine; no one at the time thought that it was a major responsibility.<29> Jefferson completed a draft in consultation with other committee members, drawing on his own proposed draft of the Virginia Constitution, George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and other sources.<30>

Jefferson showed his draft to the committee, which made some final revisions, and then presented it to Congress on June 28, 1776. After voting in favor of the resolution of independence on July 2, Congress turned its attention to the declaration. Over several days of debate, Congress made a few changes in wording and deleted nearly a fourth of the text, most notably a passage critical of the slave trade, changes that Jefferson resented.<31> On July 4, 1776, the wording of the Declaration of Independence was ratified. The Declaration would eventually become Jefferson's major claim to fame, and his eloquent preamble became an enduring statement of human rights.<31>..."

Jefferson's concepts of democracy were rooted in The Enlightenment, as Peter Onuf has stressed. He envisioned democracy an expression of society as a whole, calling for national self-determination, cultural uniformity, and based upon the education of the all the people. The emphasis on uniformity allowed no opportunity for a multiracial republic in which some groups were not fully assimilated into the identical republican values. Onuf argues that Jefferson was unable and unwilling to abolish slavery until a such demand could issue naturally from the sensibilities of the entire people.<145> Public education and a free press was essential to a democratic nation: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and never will be....The people cannot be safe without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.<146>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_jefferson

You are not forgotten Honorable Thomas Jefferson!!!

Quotes: http://www.writespirit.net/authors/thomas_jefferson/quotes_war_jefferson

" I love peace, and am anxious that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by showing to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war, which is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer."

" War has been avoided from a due sense of the miseries, and the demoralization it produces, and of the superior blessings of a state of peace and friendship with all mankind."

" I value peace, and I should unwillingly see any event take place which would render war a necessary resource."

" Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness."

" Believing that the happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side."

"I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect."

" We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities."


" The evils which of necessity encompass the life of man are sufficiently numerous. Why should we add to them by voluntarily distressing and destroying one another? Peace, brothers, is better than war. In a long and bloody war, we lose many friends, and gain nothing. Let us then live in peace and friendship together, doing to each other all the good we can."

" Born in the same land, we ought to live as brothers, doing to each other all the good we can, and not listening to wicked men, who may endeavor to make us enemies. By living in peace, we can help and prosper one another; by waging war, we can kill and destroy many on both sides; but those who survive will not be the happier for that."

Long Live Thomas Jefferson!!!

[Bucky]

1. Jefferson opposing the slave trade is akin to Lee Iacocca opposing Toyotas

He had no problem with slavery; his objection was to imports undercutting the cash value of his domestic property.

Jefferson was a great thinker, but you could drive a Mac truck through the holes in his moral blind spots.